Bardstown Bourbon Company has only been making whiskey since 2016, which is a blink of an eye compared to some of its storied Kentucky neighbors. But it’s already become the go-to producer for many brands looking to contract-distill bourbon and rye with about 50 different mashbills up its sleeve, including Belle Meade, Jefferson’s, and Blue Run. This sleek, modern distillery is also home to an impressive blending operation, with several different lineups of whiskeys made of liquid sourced from states like Kentucky and Tennessee. Bardstown Bourbon Company is also showcasing its own in-house-produced distillate with a lineup called the Origin Series. But first, a primer on this relative newcomer.
Transparency is incredibly important to whiskey fans, and Bardstown Bourbon Company has done a good job of letting you know exactly what’s in the bottle by listing percentages of the blend, mashbills, and ages of the various whiskeys, along with the states they were sourced from.
The distillery’s Fusion Series is focused on blending older sourced whiskey with younger Bardstown Bourbon Company whiskey; the Discovery Series is made up of unique blends of sourced bourbon and rye; and the Collaborative Series is built around interesting cask finishes, such as infrared toasted cherry oak barrels from West Virginia and armagnac casks from France.
The latest whiskey to join the lineup is the Origin Series, Bardstown Bourbon Company’s first “estate-distilled” collection. In other words, none of the liquid in these bottles was sourced; instead it was all distilled, aged, and bottled at the distillery in the heart of bourbon country.
There are three expressions to kick off this new collection. Origin Series Bourbon is a six-year-old whiskey with a mashbill of 60 percent corn, 36 percent rye, and 4 percent malted barley that’s bottled at 96 proof. The palate has notes of vanilla, nutmeg, honey, and a nice bit of spice and black pepper from that sizable rye component. Origin Series Kentucky Straight Rye is more like a rye whiskey you’d expect from MGP Indiana than the Bluegrass State, with a mashbill of 95 percent rye and 5 percent malted barley. This six-year-old whiskey was finished in hybrid American oak and cherry wood barrels for up to six months, in which the staves are arranged in alternating patterns. The result is a peppery and fruity rye that makes for an excellent Manhattan. Finally, there’s the Wheated Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon. This six-year-old whiskey swaps out wheat for rye in the mashbill–68 percent corn, 20 percent wheat, and 12 percent malted barley. It’s bottled at 100 proof, as is required to be called a bottled-in-bond whiskey, and the palate is a bit sweeter with some honey, maple, and stone fruit notes.
Other distilleries have been making the move from sourcing all of their whiskey to bottling their own aged distillate produced on-site, either as a complete shift in business model or as a new and separate product line. WhistlePig, Michter’s, and Smooth Ambler are just a few well known names that have made this transition while continuing to contract distill and source whiskey.
Bardstown Bourbon Company will follow this path, continuing to source bourbon and rye for its core series of blends, but offering the Origin Series as a chance to try Bardstown Bourbon Company whiskey on its own. And the results so far are very good.
The distillery could have released this lineup at a younger age, like the three to four-year-old whiskey in the Fusion Series. But the wait was worth it, because these whiskeys now offer an appealing alternative to any similarly aged expression from old-school distilleries like Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, or Buffalo Trace.
Origin Series Wheated Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon, $49.99; bardstownbourbon.com
Learn MoreOrigin Series Bourbon, $44.99; bardstownbourbon.com
Learn MoreOrigin Series Rye, $69.99; bardstownbourbon.com
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from Men's Journal https://ift.tt/cPKigRZ
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